Audit finds concerns at mobile clinics at schools across Bernalillo County

A recent audit found a health provider serving students at four middle schools in Bernalillo County was out of compliance with federal health laws, provided questionable paperwork and did not have licenses available for staff working.

A draft of the audit, carried out in June and obtained by the Journal through an Inspection of Public Records Act request, highlighted concerns with Health Yeah!’s clinic operations and said the contractor was not fulfilling its agreement with the county.

However, Tyler Evans, the organization’s chief medical officer, described the audit as “inaccurate,” adding that many of the record-keeping issues auditors identified were caused by a lack of understanding of how to decipher medical records.

“We were providing clinical services to some of the poorest kids in the county,” Evans said. “These are medically fragile communities.”

He also said Bernalillo County terminated the contract “without cause.” Evans said to terminate the contract over concerns about the audit would be “with cause.”

According to the agreement between the county and Wellness Equity Alliance, shared with the Journal, either side can terminate the contract “upon written notice delivered to the other party at least 30 days prior to the intended date of termination.”

“The reality is we’ve worked with probably over 100 government agencies across the country,” Evans said. “Bernalillo County was probably one of the most challenging.”

County Manager Cindy Chavez said the county had not done anything wrong by terminating the contract.

“I’m confident the county is acting responsibly, both in its stewardship of public funds and in its relationships with contractors,” she said in a statement. “Bernalillo County is obligated to protect the safety of our residents, to ensure we are spending the public dollars efficiently and to maintain the public trust. Any representations the county is doing otherwise are not only regrettable, but unfair and extremely disappointing.”

Wellness Equity Alliance is a California-based company that aims to provide health care to marginalized communities. Its initiative, in partnership with Bernalillo County, was sending the Health Yeah! mobile clinics to schools at a cost of $1.5 million annually. The program launched last October.

“WEA (Wellness Equity Alliance) is in material noncompliance with its Professional Services Agreement with Bernalillo County,” the audit said in its conclusion. “The audit identified a lack of accurate records, valid assessments, signed consents, and verifiable service delivery, all of which compromise the integrity of the program and prevent the County from verifying contractual performance.”

Bernalillo County terminated the program last month. The audit was conducted on June 30 by the county. Because of the termination, Evans said Wellness Equity Alliance has filed suit against the county.

The Journal could not locate the lawsuit in searches of court records, and John Anderson, the attorney representing Health Yeah! and the Wellness Equity Alliance, did not provide a requested copy of the suit.

“In business, sometimes you do separate, but there’s, there’s the right way to go about this,” Evans said. “This absolutely was not the right way.”

The clinics were located at four Albuquerque Public Schools: McKinley, Roosevelt, Truman and Tony Hillerman middle schools.

The audit

Early on in the report, auditors noted that staff were uploading files from cloud-based health care provider Athenahealth to a Google Drive, which they notified staff was out of compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a federal law. Wellness Equity Alliance staff contested that their version of Google Drive was “HIPPA-compliant.”

“They, again, don’t understand medicine. It’s all through the electronic medical record called Athena,” Evans said. “We talked this through with them the entire time; they (auditors) just were fumbling through it because they didn’t understand.”

Auditors also said licensing wasn’t available for seven staffers, including a pharmacist, two nurse practitioners, two rig drivers and a psychiatric technician.

“All of our clinicians are licensed,” Evans said. He did not provide requested proof of licenses to the Journal on Tuesday evening.

Auditors were also concerned about the care plans given to students.

“The behavioral health treatment plans were generally not written in language that would be easily understood by the client and did not adhere to commonly accepted behavioral health practices,” according to the audit.

Auditors also found that the number of clients the mobile clinics were serving was “inconsistent” with the number they had been told of.

“The WEA performance report for October 2024 through June 2025 indicated service to 334 primary clients and 151 secondary clients, as well as 292 referrals received. However, these referrals were not evidenced in any of the client files reviewed,” according to the audit. “Moreover, the client list provided to BHA for review contained only 126 client files, a substantial discrepancy from the 334 clients reported.”

The audit found the discrepancies “hinder the ability to validate service delivery, evaluate performance metrics, or confirm compliance with contractual obligations.”

“Auditors were not granted access to the Athena EHR System, which further limited the ability to verify the completeness and accuracy of clinical documentation,” according to the audit. “The review of the sampled files revealed pervasive and serious documentation deficiencies.”

Evans said those numbers were inaccurate and that the clinics were serving thousands of students.

Auditors said they found little evidence that the students receiving services were provided “warm handoffs,” which the report defines as “a coordinated and documented transition of care between providers to ensure service continuity and reduce client drop-off.”

The audit also found that discharge summaries weren’t available for clients, but it said that Evans contested that the program does not use discharge metrics and instead “emphasizes client retention.”

In an interview, Evans doubled down on that and added that it isn’t common in primary care to refer patients out unless it’s to a specialist.

“I was leading the audit, and I told one of the auditors that ultimately our focus is not to refer out,” he said.

In addition to concerns auditors found with the program, the audit said that the contractors over-billed the county in unapproved expenses and travel invoices.

“Ineligible expenses were found for travel expenses for the purchase of food and alcohol totaling $347.29,” according to the audit. “Additional concerns related to travel expenses include a luxury vehicle in addition to valet parking totaling $260.99.”

Among the expenses were the contractor’s repeated rental of a BMW sedan, several meals that cost $50 or more, and one in-flight liquor purchase.

“Travel costs were included in our approved budget and explicitly agreed upon with Bernalillo County leadership as part of the process for an out-of-state organization,” Nancy Anwar Evans, director of operations at Wellness Equity Alliance, wrote in an email to the Journal.

Evans said that everything in travel billing was done “above board” and that the county’s lack of communication upset him.

“If there were questions about breakfast or BMWs or something like that, then have a conversation, right?” Evans said. “There was never that opportunity to even have a conversation about things that they may or may not have been happy with.”

He also took issue with how quickly the county terminated the contract. Evans said that even after Wellness Equity Alliance knew the county would wind down the partnership, he was under the impression the clinics could operate until December. The clinics ceased operations earlier this month.

For his part, Eric Olivas, chair of the county commission, said that the paperwork discrepancies made it hard to determine what the county was paying for.

“I think the program evaluation speaks for itself, and I think there’s plenty of blame to go around on both the county and on the provider,” Olivas said.

Chavez, the county manager, also said that the county was looking at alternatives to the program to provide health care at schools.

“The county is working with Albuquerque Public Schools to explore new and innovative ways of delivering health care to our school-aged children,” she said.